


Under the Layers of Gold

by APenguinAteMySmarthphone



Series: Where Sleeping Lions Lie [1]
Category: HiGH&LOW (Movies), HiGH&LOW: THE WORST (TV), HiGH&LOW: the Story of S.W.O.R.D. (TV)
Genre: Also Surrounded By Other Violent Boys, Am I using that tag correctly, Bad Title Warning, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Contemplation, For what I'm thinking I swear, I don't know, I'm Bad At Titles, Implied Relationships, Introspection, It's an art at this point, Lot's of it, Not Canon Compliant, OK I'm gonna shut up now, Swearing, There's A Tag For That, Unresolved Tension, Violent Boys Being Violent Boys, if you can call it that, it's up to you so have fun, somewhat i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:21:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25855039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APenguinAteMySmarthphone/pseuds/APenguinAteMySmarthphone
Summary: To everyone else, the partnership that Hanaoka Fujio and Takajo Tsukasa share is something to be admired, the perfect example of partners so in sync, so capable of making up for one another's weaknesses and so capable of matching themselves to one another's strengths. It sets them apart, makes them one of the most well-known teams in all of Oya High, between all its factions and all its students.But Nishikawa Yasushi has always found something about those two disconcerting. Or, in his not-so-clean-or-expansive vocabulary, "bat-shit freaky". Also, something about them, Tsukasa in particular, pisses him off on a daily, although with him, that's not so abnormal.
Relationships: Hanaoka Fujio/Takajo Tsukasa, Hanaoka Fujio/Takajo Tsukasa (implied)
Series: Where Sleeping Lions Lie [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903306
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Under the Layers of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> I'm largely going off of memory for Yasushi's surname because not even the official site had it and I swear I heard 'Nishikawa' so I'm sticking with it 'till someone corrects me (in other words if anyone knows better please correct me).
> 
> Haven't written a HiGH&LOW fic for over a year and I felt a sudden urge. I don't know why, but I love writing from the points of view of characters who didn't get too much coverage or backstory yet (some basic outlines is all I have 'till further notice). Also, writing characters who are more likely to curse every two seconds (like me) makes it very easy to write. And fun.

It's not really a topic of utmost concern in his mind, but it nags at him all the same. Like a mildly unpleasant memory which rears its ugly head at the most random and inconvenient of times, like when he's trying to beat the ever-living shit out of yet another dumbass who has had the unfortunate luck of crossing his path when he was in a bad mood. Or a good mood. Really, it depended on the time of day, and what day it also happened to be.

(Someoneーan annoying bastard with glasses whom he refused to acknowledge as a friendーonce said in tones of cool amusement that if such were the case, then it really didn't matter; he would likely wind up beating the life out of some poor soul regardless anyway.)

Good mood or no, however, the thoughts of this...thing nagging his mind sometimes cause him very real and serious concern, where he wonders if he's actually losing his mindーhe knows his overly violent behavior coupled with his complete enthusiasm for doing so is some indication, but this is another matter entirely. One he would really like to forget, because if he keeps thinking, mark his words, he _will_ beat up someone again. There were plenty of third years around to serve as satisfactory opponents. 

However, even the thrill of a fight is soured when he sees that annoyingly blonde head of hair, coupled with that goddamned pretty face, which makes him wonder why in the hell the bastard's parents had ever thought it would be a good idea to let someone so inherently and annoyingly _beautiful_ actually come to this blood-covered school, before he remembered that they all came from the same place, and almost every parent there, save for a few exceptions, was likely not in their right minds, or as concerned with their child's safety as they were expected to be from society. Which was fine. Screw them and their loose control of their children; if they weren't going to raise their hands at them for roaming free, then they would all seize that opportunity. Even _he_ followed that principle to the T, despite his aloof and cool attitude, despite his lack of interest in almost all things, despite how easily he won fights and how unfairly blessed he had been with the natural talent for it. Everything about him was designed to rub Yasushi the wrong way, and he absolutely couldn't stand it. 

He didn't understand Takajo Tsukasa. Couldn't accept his cold and organic view of the world, which he glanced down on with uninterested eyes, dull with boredom and lack of motivationーit eluded him, for it was far too complicated, and he hated that too, that Tsukasa was so obviously more intelligent than he let on, with how quietly he kept to himself. Nothing about him screamed honor student like their current leader's appearance did, but then again, Yasushi knew best how easily appearances could deceive. He'd first thought of Kiyoshi as nothing more than a crazed maniac like he, but as they stacked year upon year with each other, he had come to realize several things about his partner: he was devastatingly simple; he was easy to impress; he could get excited over the silliest and most childish things; he liked operating in a group. He wasn't a complete loner like Tsukasa, nor did he seem to be as prone to solo action as he himself sometimes tended to be, going out on his own for certain "errands". Like when he had tried to challenge Tsukasa to a fight, upon his arrival at Oya High. 

The bastard hadn't risen to the challenge. It had infuriated him to no end.

Everyone, upon Fujio's return, had found themselves drawn to the whirlwind that was his personalityーexceedingly bright and ridiculously out of place. He sauntered around, giving dumb nicknames to whomever he pleased, attracting admirationーlike Nakagoshi and Nakaoka's group (it had been mainly Nakagoshi)ーor curiosity. Some stared at him with unmasked hostility, while others found themselves inevitably and unwillingly drawn to his charms. Kiyoshi seemed to believe the tag battles between them and the pair that was Tsukasa and Fujio were the most fun, and while he could agree with him on the point of the _fighting itself,_ he couldn't say he was as admiring or awed or even remotely impressed the way others were at their perfection in being a duo. It wasn't that they talked only to one another, or treated one another in such a manner to differentiate them from everyone else, as if isolating themselves into their own world. But there was something so inherently _right_ that everyone felt seeing them besides one another, and while everyone stood around gawking and murmuring and blustering, Yasushi watched them with narrowed eyes and marveled that no one else seemed to feel the same weird revulsion he did at seeing them the way they were.

To borrow Todoroki's endless list of convoluted (this was another of them) phrases, those two as a pair were disconcerting to him. He had no clue how it had come to beーhe only knew that the blonde kid he and Kiyoshi had been targeting had one day turned up with a partner, a strange new gleam in his once cold and lifeless eyes. And this partner had turned out to be his polar opposite: loud, cheerful, brash, friendly. A big dreamer with a big mouth and a weird air of cheer for someone so accustomed, it seemed, to beating the shit out of anyone else. And when he threw his arm around Tsukasa after their first fight, and his arm didn't get dropped off, Yasushi felt a strange sense of curdling revulsion even he couldn't understand. 

That was the worst part. They made him _wonder;_ they made him confused. He found himself asking his mind questions his own mind couldn't comprehend, and the sheer irony of it was that it was that very same mind that was producing those questions. 

A little Advil and a good fight would soothe it, he told himself. And that was what he did, and for a long time he pretended it actually worked. When he knew full well it was doing nothing for him, just as comprehension of Tsukasa was.

* * *

Yasushi had first met Tsukasa in middle school, but he had heard rumors of the boy before they even knew each other's faces.

Even if that sleeping lion didn't realize it, he had a secret following; at the very least, people were intrigued by him. He had, as annoying as it was to admit, been blessed with an inherently delicate appearance, and in his much younger years it was rumored he was actually a young _girl._ Imagining Tsukasa now, he wondered how the boy had then responded to such outlandish claims, had he been aware of them in the first place. On top of having a face that made girls and boys alike feel a sharp twinge in their chest, he was apparently a very good (read: dangerous) fighter. And weirdly enough, he hung around the kids no one really bothered with: the loners, the outcasts, the victims of the combined efforts of the falsely strong to weed out someone they deemed weak, so they wouldn't have to prove their strength (and consequently their weakness) in a fair and true fight. Tsukasa didn't go gathering them around himーif anything he seemed to prefer being alone. And yet that interfering nature of his gathered around him a small base of younger students who were essentially worshipers, all prepared to follow the now-blonde boy around for the rest of eternity. The rumors swirled around Yasushi like a storm, leaving him with all yet none of the clues he had been hoping to glean of this so-called "Takajo Tsukasa", who everyone had so feared. 

At the time he hadn't paid much attention to the gossip. There was plenty going on in their corner of town, so rife with violence as it was. In fact, he was decently certain there was likely an unsavory rumor or two about him floating somewhereーa hunch he gleaned from the nervous looks he often got and the whispers that sometimes followed, like moths attracted to light, who had no idea what to do once they had reached their destination. About the only ones that had remained undisturbed by whatever rumors (or truthsーbecause yes, he had, as a matter of fact, broken the fingers of a man twice his side before leaving him embedded in the side window of an old pickup truck) were some of the more _prominent_ figures of Hope Hill: Tsuji and Shibaman, from the murder block; Kiyoshi, from the same block as he, who had been so impressed with Yasushi's madness that he had spent a good seven minutes praising him on the very wonderful way with which he had ungraciously thrown some grade school child who had picked a fight with him over the fence. And by "thrown over the fence", he really meant thrown over the fence. He hadn't expected the kid to actually go flying that far, but what was done was done and he had no intention of playing some shounen manga hero by approaching his defeated opponent with an outstretched hand. He had, in fact, been a little preoccupied trying to understand Kiyoshi's excitement. Ultimately, he had concluded that, here was another child like him, mad and starved for a good fight with no barriers, no one following the same, tired old patterns of old-school "bad boys". Here was someone who could hold his own in a fight and make it as exciting and overly wild as possible, tearing and smashing at the same pace as their adrenaline raced. Here was a good partner, a friend whose mind was just as violent and explosive as his.

He had turned out to be mostly right, although he hadn't calculated for Kiyoshi's enthusiasm in _other_ fields, such as simply finding some of the things Yasushi did "cool" or "amazing". Those words became more commonplace in his life, once he had found his partner. Soon, others were flocking to them, boys with some hint of wildness in their blood, who simply needed a leader mad enough to draw it out. In the two of them, they found it.

They also found the _actual_ Takajo Tsukasa then, not the elusive child drawn in whispers and myths, but the flesh and blood young boy who had a very unfortunate habit of getting caught up in saving kids whoーmiraculously for their neighborhoodーdidn't want to fight, and who (surprise, surprise) found themselves targeted for it. Despite how he acted like he very much would prefer to be alone and in peace, he fought like a whirlwind, or, rarely, a savage beast. It wasn't a sight many had seen often, primarily because he didn't seem all that interested in giving it.

Yasushi had seen it a few times. It wasn't something he would call "insane", like the reckless and (quite literally) neck-breaking violence he and Kiyoshi inflicted, but a different kind of crazy that still fell under the category of utter carnage. He didn't get faster, or ridiculously stronger, or anything so cliche and simple. 

Tsukasa fought in two different ways: when he felt he had something to win, and when he simply didn't care about the outcome, more focused on wreaking as much damage on his opponent as humanly possible. When he fought to win, he was perfectly strong in his own right, able to hold his own against groups of more than three, even. The second pattern was the one he didn't see often, not recently, and he was beginning to think he could owe it to Fujio's presence in their lives. Not that he was terribly happy about it.

Yasushi and Kiyoshi had picked a fight with Tsukasa for a rather simple reason: he had beaten some of their own, soundly and smoothly, because they had had the unfortunate luck of trying to bully Tsukasa's firstーand the most devotedーhanger-on, the funny little kid they all came to call Jamuo. They'd seen an easy mark, decided to prod him for the heck of it, and somehow wound up beaten and bruised, lying on the ground staring at a boy slightly smaller and thinner than them all, so delicate-looking that they had wondered briefly if he had been simply just another young child who had wandered there by chance, not the person who had knocked them all out of their shoes. But his _eyes,_ they had all said, had been several degrees colder than the chill of the winter air around them, like frost, and he stared down at them not with disdain or triumph but an expressionless and disinterested look, as if he had not just pummeled them all in a fight and won. Nothing radiated off of him, no righteousness or worry for his friend, nothing, and when Yasushi first laid his eyes on the other boy, his hair dark at the time, he had been struck with his likeness to a porcelain doll: beautiful and ethereal, but cold, devoid of life. There was no fire when he listened to them threaten him, their group all hanging back as their two leaders demanded a fight, grinning twin manic smiles. Even as Jamuo clung to Tsukasa's back, whimpering (for he knew the rumors surrounding anyone and everyone more than anyone else in all of Hope Hill), the doll-like boy only listened with a cold silence, the polar opposite of their fiery challenges. 

It was during that first fight that Yasushi realized that Tsukasa wasn't a kid fighting to win, to stand at the top above his opponents. He was someone who fought because it was a given instinct from birth, which he used to damage whoever he wished as much as he possibly could, to the point he didn't care if his own body would break. In other words, he was always fighting his best, but he didn't care that he was, and the outcome wasn't so much of interest to him as simply carrying out the fight was. Like it was a predetermined motion his body _needed_ to go through. There was no stimulus, no drive, but this also made it possible for him to deem any fight a fight he would take, because he had no principle for what kinds of fights he would get wrapped up in. 

(This was likely why Tsukasa found himself unwittingly saving other children, boys and girls both, and gathering for himself a growing number of admirers which he seemed mostly clueless about.)

The weeks, which stretched to months, following that were simple. It was a death match between the three of themーYasushi and Kiyoshi versus Tsukasa. Talks of the fights made their rounds, circulating throughout Hope Hill, until they finally reached the ears of a certain, overly cheerful and rather meddlesome boy who was not so well-known as he made himself well-acquainted. If you didn't familiarize yourself with his face, and he wanted you to, he would ensure that you did, no matter what. Fujio showed up like a storm in the midst of their quarrel, proclaiming his interest in it and in Tsukasa himself, which, Yasushi later heard, left the other slightly speechless. Not silent, or decidedly not talkative, but genuinely speechless. 

Now, Tsukasa's fights had a _goal_ in mind, something concrete and specific. It was so devastatingly simple it was almost pure: reach the top with Fujio, as his partner. As his friend. His fights were no longer aimed at senseless and wandering violence, his eyes no longer empty. He was swinging his fists, kicking with his legs, knocking the air out of his opponent for a _reason,_ and that reason included Hanaoka Fujio, and no one else. 

It was really that simple.

To the Yasushi and Kiyoshi who yearned for bloody fights, who yearned to go on a rampage across courtyards and fields of drying grass near cracked concrete walls, this change was a welcome one. They had almost backed Tsukasa into a corner, a sign that their targets would soon inevitably change once they finished him off once and for all. The appearance of Fujioーunprecedented and sudden as it wasーgave way to a welcome change; a sign of continued and renewed battles, of a now-burning rivalry between two sets of partners with the goal of reaching the top. By all appearances, this change in Tsukasaーin their fightsーshould have made them happy, more excited. Now, the two were harder to beat than ever before, and it was proving to be a welcome challenge for Yasushi and Kiyoshi. His rather single-minded partner seemed to be satisfied with the new arrangement, and of course it was to be expected that Yasushi himself was as well.

Or, at least, he thinks, trying to ignore the churning pit of something akin to nausea growing in his stomach, it _should_ have.

* * *

"If you aren't gonna buy anything," The voice came, unbidden, from behind, tinged with growing impatience. There was a vague chattering of teeth accompanied by each word, a sign of the recent drop in temperatures, resulting in frost and bringing with it promises of snow. "Then could you maybe do us a favor and move?"

Yasushi craned his neck over his shoulder to see Todoroki staring down at him from behind fogged glasses, turned white from his breath, which was blocked from going outwards by the large scarf wrapped around his neck, thrown over his shoulders. The orange colors threw a very startling contrast with the normal all-black appearance that Todoroki tended to maintain, nearly making him bark a laugh. He wound up doing so anyway, earning him a confused glare from Tsuji, standing right behind Todoroki. Shibaman was hanging back, yawning, his eyes on the road as the three of them waited for the bus. 

Grunting in annoyance at having to cede his spot by the vending machine, which was providing a good shield against the current blowing of the wind, Yasushi slid over a few inches, refusing to give up any more room to the trio than he deemed necessary. Tsuji's eyes hardened slightly and he made a move as if to start forward, until Todoroki softly put out a hand, barely perceptible. Without another word of acknowledgement to Yasushi, his fellow Oya classmate (the word felt weird, especially in the context of their high school in particular) slid in a single bill with a glove-encased hand, pushing a few buttons in silence. Neither one of them spoke, the only sounds for miles the dull thuds of the drinks, three in total, rolling along the bottom of the machine as they deposited themselves unceremoniously out for their purchasers to take. Todoroki handed two to his friend, who was somehow still wearing sunglasses despite it being close to the dead of winter.

"The bus is late." Shibaman muttered, and Tsuji, taking this as his cue to go look with his longtime friend, lumbered over to the side of the road, his drink and Shibaman's in hand, right next to the sign labeled as a "bus stop", the only thing marking the place as such. Todoroki took his own can, warming his hands on either side of it through his gloves. Yasushi's own hands were uncovered, the only warmth he could get coming from the thin long-sleeved and oversized shirt he wore on top of a few others. His chain still hung, like a cold dead weight of ice, against his neck, which remained just as unprotected as his hands. His shoes were merely a slightly thicker set of sneakers than his usual pair, and his legs felt liable to freezeーhe had the illusion that if he stood, his legs would be completely iced over and would crack and shatter at his sudden movement. His face felt stiff, but even then he decidedly did not look at Todoroki, who had opened the can in his hands, releasing a gentle cloud of steam into the air and fogging his glasses further.

Suddenly he was unable to bear the silence any longerーit did not feel awkward or uncomfortable, and if anything, was more welcome than not, but being around someone else who _wasn't_ one of the people he thought might know him best (at least better than most), his own mouth started to move, the words coming out before he could think of their contents, or their implication. "...Where are you bastards heading?"

"Ah?" Todoroki gave him a confused glare, one eyebrow raised behind his whitened glasses. He wiped away the fog with a hand, focusing his now visible eyes on Yasushi's face, which was still decidedly turned away from his.

"You're all waiting for the bus, aren't you?" he snapped, although it came out a lot less hostile than he would have liked, "I'm _asking_ where you bastards are headed."

Todoroki fixed him with an appraising look for a while. "Why do you care?" It sounded less like a challenge and more like a genuine question.

Which prompted Yasushi to give an honestーor close to honestーreply. "I don't," he snapped, flexing his fingers to prevent loss of blood circulation, whatever the hell that meant. One of the guys in his group had been talking about a neighbor who had supposedly lost his fingers to the biting coldーhow they had simply snapped off, like twigs. "But we're just four dudes, hanging around the bus stop, and you three look all geared to go somewhere and those two are watching the street, so it makes a guy wonder." He gave an offhanded shrug. "If it's private, you don't have to tell me. It's none of my business, and I don't really give a damn anyway." 

There was a beat of silence, broken by Tsuji's loud sigh. "Todoroki, it's not coming."

"How late is it?" Todoroki called out.

Shibaman glanced down at his phone. "By like 12 minutes."

The three glanced among each other, unspoken words flying between them in a network of silent communication only they could understand. After collectively sighing, Tsuji and Shibaman went back to their observation of the road. Todoroki continued to sip his drink, walking forward toward his two friends. 

He paused. "To answer your question," he said, voice neutral, "The three of us were going to the game center, but the one around here was closed because the owner caught a cold and two of his only three employees are away for the weekend. The last one couldn't open up shop on his own because he's a new recruit and the owner didn't feel comfortable leaving him in the shop on his own in a town like this. So we're going to the large one across town, in that new shopping center they recently built." Todoroki stared at him, as if asking, _any more questions?_

Yasushi snorted, "Should've told that to Tsukasa and Fujio too, then."

Todoroki's brow scrunched. "Hanaoka and Takajo? Why?"

It was a completely natural question, and Yasushi only realized he had slipped up after the names had left his mouth. "No reason," he mumbled, furious with himself. "They both were whining about how the game center was closed and there wasn't much else to do on a cold day like this." He paused, remembering the events of the day. "No, more like Fujio was complaining and Tsukasa was trying to calm him down and find another way for them to hang out. Like always." He wanted to bite his tongue for adding that last partーif Todoroki hadn't thought his mention of the two wasn't odd then, he _definitely_ noticed the note of bitterness in his tone now. He couldn't mask it, no matter how hard he tried. 

The current head of Oya High was gazing at him in a scrutinizing way that made Yasushi uncomfortable, and he averted his gaze even further from the bespectacled youth, focusing instead on the years of worn and weathered signs, torn from the wind and the rain and the scorching heat and the freezing cold, all plastered to the telephone poles like a second skin. Over what had once been papers covered in colorful pop slogans advertising limited time store campaigns, or pleas to help find a missing dog, or calls for new employees for all sorts of small jobs across town and further, or simply just bland papers with telephone numbers asking this and that, offering services or requesting them. Those papers were now faded and barely legible, sprayed over by layers and layers of paints and graffiti, obscene slogans and colorful words, odd drawings and small-time gang symbols, determined words and quotes screaming that the person who had painted them had been there, had existed, at some point in some time. It depressed him, ever so slightly, to think that those layers of history, so insignificant to most, stood here on a single bland telephone pole, wrapped and wrapped by more and more layers until they remained at the bottom as nothing but faded letters and papers.

Sort of like, he thought, even though he didn't really want to, the time he had spent trying to drag Tsukasa's will to fight out of him, trying for weeks and weeks, only to have it so easily pulled out by a complete stranger and so simply placed in front of him, as if someone had popped the lid off of a jar he had been determined to open on his own, no matter how much time it took. Like some part of him had been lowered with the realization that someone else had managed something that he had unconsciously set his mind to, and so easily at that. 

In the distance, all four boys heard the faint rumbles of an approaching bus, the lights breaking through the gray and gloom around them. "Todoroki~" Tsuji called meaninglessly, while Shibaman waved his arms wide, his tall figure easily noticeable even in the not-so-optimal light of the day. Todoroki began to walk over to his friends, and Yasushi hunched against the vending machine again, grateful for the bus' timing. 

With a glance at him from the corner of his eyes, Todoroki said, in a quiet voice that wouldn't carry to the others, "I don't know what happened, and I don't really care, but I personally wouldn't recommend clinging to something if it hurts you more than it should. I'm just saying." Leaving those cryptic words behind, he trudged over to his friends, who spared Yasushi a curious glance each, before they all got onto the bus right as its doors rolled open, lights shining dimly in the dull light.

Several moments after the bus had left, Yasushi, forgetting all about his fears about the potential of his legs snapping off like icicles, stood to leave before he froze to death.

* * *

He hadn't walked a few feet when he saw that infuriating head of blonde hair, so bright in the dull gloom as if made up of thousands of spun golden threads, that he had to stop in his tracks and pinch himself to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Or was having a bad dream.

Unfortunately, it was neither.

Of all the times, right after he had said more to Todoroki than he had ever meant to say to anyone, he _had_ to run into the one person who could piss him off more than any other person in the world. Because no matter how many times he challenged him, it was always _himself_ who became angered, who felt a flame light up and ignite into a blaze that ended sometimes with and sometimes without the fight he wished for. 

Ahead of him, Tsukasa paused to stare down at a stray cat that had come up to rub against his ankle. Apparentlyーaccording to Fujio and Jamuo's accounts, this happened fairly often; Tsukasa was relatively popular with cats. Stray cats, more specifically. Tsukasa didn't seem to care much, himself, letting the cat do as it pleased, before it sauntered off in the sassy way cats tend to do, acting as if it hadn't just been affectionately twining itself around a human, a creature from which they had supposedly sworn off independence. Yasushi watched the catーan orange tabby with muddy colored stripesーstroll off, tail quirked into the shape of a question mark, and he was so busy watching the cat that he didn't notice Tsukasa was staring at him, startled, until he turned his head and their eyes met. 

Well. This was...horribly awkward. Really, _really_ fucking awkward.

Tsukasa wasn't dressed as lightly as Yasushi was, nor was he as bundled as Todoroki had been. A loose red scarf hung around his neck, sliding down by the slightest of margins to reveal a hint of his pale neck, as white as snow and reddening slightly from its exposure to the cold. He wasn't wearing any glovesーthe hands shoved into his pockets looked bare at the wrist, the white skin there also slightly red from the sting of the biting air. His clothes only looked a little bit more warm than his usual getup. Aside from that, he didn't look very equipped to handle the cold at all.

"Yasushi." Tsukasa looked as bewildered by the other's appearance as he himself felt. "What are you doing here?"

"Ah?" Yasushi replied, low and deep in his throat. "That's what I wanna ask you. The hell are you doing out here, on your own? Where the hell is Fujio?"

Tsukasa's eyes hardened, chips his old ice slowly gathering once more, a remnant of his past self. "I was heading home," he snapped, "And where Fujio is is none of your business." At his tone, Yasushi narrowed his eyes to stare into Tsukasa's porcelain face.

"Huh~??" He grinned mockingly, walking over with light steps until his face was inches from Tsukasa's own. "What, did I hit a sore spot? Did your _beloved_ partner go off somewhere and leave his poor little lion all on his lonesome?" Smiling his most enigmatic and wide smile, he stared into Tsukasa's dark and deep eyes, waiting to see the blonde's reaction.

Tsukasa stared down at him with equal disdain, all but snarling back, "Fujio can go off wherever he needs to on his own if he wants, and I can go walk anywhere I want on my own. I don't see how that's any of your business."

 _It's not._ "I just find it soooo funny, y'know?" He opened his mouth into a snarling grin, his teeth glinting. "You were soooo sad and lonely without him, but even now he leaves you to go off on his own, do his own thing. Don't you ever get tired of it?"

He half expected a fist to come flying at him, or for Tsukasa's eyes to blaze with fury. While that wouldn't have been the reaction he had completely been hoping for, it would have satisfied him just fine. But his fellow Oya High student did neither of those things. Instead, he let out a small laugh, barely a sigh. It sounded a little sad, a little amused, and a little...pitying.

"Not everyone works in a way you would understand," Tsukasa said, voice calm and collected. "I'm happy enough that Fujio came backーknowing he's here reassures me. I don't need him right by my side to be okay; if he's in the same time, and we're trying for the same goal, then no matter who he's with or what he does, whether I'm there or not, I'll know that he's still _here,_ that he's not bored here, because he's doing something. He's living here. I don't have to worry about him disappearing." He smiled softly, a warm expression in the midst of a freezing winter day. Yasushi felt the nausea grow and writhe in his stomach, and he had to resist the urge to keel over at the strength of it.

"You're both," he spat out, "Completely crazy."

Tsukasa blinked. "I'm sorry, have you _met_ yourself?" he asked, incredulously.

"That's not what I mean," he hissed, "What...what the hell _are_ you two...?"

Tsukasa's brow began to furrow, his own voice slowly gaining a tint of anger. "What the hell do you mean, 'what are we'? We're friends and partners, like you and Kiyoshi are. What's so weird aboutー"

Then Yasushi was grabbing him by the lapels, shoving him against the concrete wall, all but ready for a fight. He could feel his own pulse beating erratically, and something in his mind urged him to calm downーno matter how one looked at it, Tsukasa hadn't done anything in the wrong, and yet a part of him couldn't stand it any longer, watching him talk of the partnership between him and Fujio as if it were so _simple,_ so _normal,_ something that wasn't in the least complicated. A beautiful caricature of a young boy's fantasy, where he envisions and fancies himself and his best friend two partners out to create their own world. He _knew,_ in the instinctive way he'd know Kiyoshi was like him in his thirst for the excitement of battles, in the way he'd looked at Tsukasa the first time and known that he was like them, that he was born to violence in a way that exceeded many of their fellows in Hope Hill. 

Tsukasa's eyes were widened, surprised. His expression looked unbearably young and human, nothing like the hero that some coveted him to be, or the quiet and terrifying presence in fights that many imagined of him. He was, in that moment, in front of Yasushi's eyes, a young boy, nothing more.

Everything he wanted to say, every unspoken word of resentment (even though he knew that wasn't quite the appropriate word) spun inside him, like the innards of a washing machine, the clothes cycling around and around. Only in this case, he didn't feel a single bit of the dirt dropーnot a bit of his jumbled and messy thoughts came up clean, as clear as a sheet of blank paper. It just spun uselessly in his head, and he wanted to spit them all out.

Why hadn't it been enough, he wanted to ask, that theyーheーhad challenged Tsukasa, faced him in a fair fight where both their lives had most certainly been in a great deal of peril (metal bats had been involved, he remembers vividly); it was something the blonde hadn't really faced before, he knew, because as unwilling as he was to admit it, he _knew_ these things, noticed and heard and inevitably stored them in some dark corner of his memory, praying his usually poor skills at retaining information in school would do its work on these same bits of random information he heard and stowed away. Tsukasa's fights were always one-sided in his favorーhe didn't target weaker people, and he often went up against odds that surprised many of them, emergingーin their eyesーvictorious. But he couldn't tell if the other had ever been _satisfied_ with just that and Yasushi, with his only means of proper communication being good ol' violence, had wanted to know if the blonde wasーwas satisfied with the results his fists yielded, saw something in the people he left sprawled on the ground. And if not, he had wanted to see if he could drag that out of him, to see if kids born to blood and bruised flesh like them were capable of seeing a similar goal, of feeling the same satisfaction as each other when they did what they did best. Tsukasa's rejection to rise to the same levels of excitement or drive as Yasushi had felt like a rejection to the whole notion all together, a betrayal of a reality he had hoped would make itself clear. That they weren't born to shedding blood and scraped knuckles, bruised skin and swollen eyes, all for the sake of _nothing._ But it had been Fujio, with his inherent ability to lead and natural charisma and a magnet to people of all typesーin other words, _not_ someone with the inherent nature for pure violence. Fighting _well_ did not constitute a natural part of oneself, but nonetheless, Tsukasa had settled himself next to a person whose annoyingly shiny presence felt like a harsh light scrubbing out the stains of their existences, of their worst deeds which they would repeat in a fight, again and again, if it came to it. Because, he thought, that was who they were, and yet someone he thought was just the same had turned to another, someone who was not him, or someone like him.

 _What about him changed you?_ he wanted to know, and yet didn't want to know at all. That wasn't, he knew, what he wanted to ask anyway. _How can you stand it? Don't you feel off being near him? Don't you look at your fights and wonder why_ he's _the one dragging out that desire to win in you, which you never had before? Why your fights changed from seeking the opportunity to go wild, to wanting to rise to the top?_

He can't ask, and he knows that Tsukasa wouldn't give him a satisfactory answer anywayーhe doesn't even know _what_ would satisfy him anyway.

But he wants to be allowed at least this.

"Don't you ever wonder if you're holding back?" Grasping a fistful of his rival's blonde hair, not gently, but not too harshly either, forcing it all the way back even if he knew it was styled to be that way, to give the boy a fiercer and dangerous look. "Don't you ever look at the people you fight and think 'I know more ways to make them hurt, to make them fall'? Don't you ever wanna just _do_ that?" It's a twisted question, he knows, but he needs to ask someone, and if not this person, who eludes and irritates him more than anyone, who else?

Tsukasa doesn't react to his hair being pulled, doesn't blink in confusion at the question. His only response is to tilt his face slightly upwards, in a posture of contemplation. The motion itself is annoyingly graceful and he feels pissed off all over again. Now he can understand why Fujioーand other people, too, he knowsーwatch the blonde more deeply and carefully than the person in question realizes; Tsukasa himself is the only one unaware, he thinks with a snort to himself, of how much people notice him, in a myriad of ways. Even the partner he believes is better suited to lead than him looks at him with more care than the blonde thinks he does. Not that Yasushi would ever tell him.

"Maybe I do," Tsukasa finally murmurs, staring off at some point in space, for once the crease between his brows smooth. "Maybe I do find myself thinking that. But I won't do it."

"Why?" Yasushi gave a bitter laugh. "Oh wait, let me guess: is it because Fujio wouldn't like it? Would your hero not appreciate it if his sidekick didn't play the part of 'good guy', the same as him?" 

"No." Tsukasa shook his head, voice firm. "Fujio doesn't _care_ about that kind of thing; he doesn't find faults or flaws in another person to prod at and make them feel they have to live up to a certain standard. He'll find anything interesting about almost anyone, and he can bring out that trait _along_ with the best of anyone, even the most violent kids in our town, if he wanted. If I tortured someone in a fight, chased them around to bite their throats out or snapped their arms as easily as I wanted, if I could, then he wouldn't hate me, or anyone else, for it. Although," He laughed a little, the sound slightly sad. "He did see me fight like that. A lot. When we were in middle school." 

This was news to Yasushi, who had thought that Tsukasa's fighting style around Fujio was a result of their meeting, not an ongoing fixed process. 

"He never held it against me, or made me stop, but while I was hurting a lot of other people he was gathering them around him, making them laugh and smile and get along. And sometimes I felt like I was making a mess of what he was constantly trying to create; an atmosphere of his own, where people were drawn to him. But I was there, and I was probably not in my right mind a lot of the time, or thinking _right,_ and I guess I thought I should...find a new way to enjoy myself in a fight. Find something to gain, to achieve for myself, and for him, because he's the one that taught me to do it." Tsukasa turned his head away, but not before Yasushi could see his face beginning to flush red. "Are you gonna keep making me say all this embarrassing shit or are we done?"

Yasushi gave a loud snort. "'Embarrassing' isn't even half of it. Why don't you two just hurry up and get married or something? Cut us all a break with your obvious soppy shit."

" _You're_ the one that made me say it." Tsukasa sighed deeply, his face already retaining its usual expression of placid tiredness, which only Fujio could break. While the thought was still no comfort to him, he found he could ignore it a little better than he had at the beginning of the day.

"Oh." Tsukasa looked upーtheir surroundings seemed to have brightened a little, and the bite of the air loosened by a small margin, taking away some of the sting of the chill. Yasushi, following the blonde's line of vision, also looked up.

Just barely, the smallest, tiniest sliver of sun was peeking through the dark and dismal clouds, sending the thinnest of golden rays through, lighting up the side of the buildings and warming the air by just a little. Just as quickly as the moment came, it passed, leaving their surroundings gray once more, bringing back the biting chill that nipped angrily at their skin for forgetting to wear something a little more seasonal appropriate. 

Yasushi didn't understand Tsukasa, or Fujio, and certainly not their partnership, and he didn't think he would anytime soon, but some of the nausea he felt in his stomach had settled down a little, disturbing him less than it had this morning, and he decided he was fine with that. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> One thing I wish would've happened was more interaction between Tsukasa and Yasushi because from the way the latter acts, it seems there's a bit of a history between them before Fujio (timeline-wise I have no clue when that would be but who cares let's roll with it), which interested me a lot. I watched the movie too (fight scenes were epic, as expected of High & Low), but I think in terms of character intrigue, the drama itself stirred up a bit of hinting into additional plot. Which I'm a huge sucker for. And everyone else reading this is too...don't deny it! You knew what you were getting into as soon as you clicked the title. 
> 
> I'm joking. It's a joke. A joke! Gahhh, please don't chase me with a metal bat; I'm not a High & Low character that can take a hit from that without breaking a sweat (or a few bones)! 
> 
> (Enough fooling around...) Thank you so very much for reading! Please leave a kudos and/or a comment if you have the time. Ciao!


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